CHAPTER IX.
We had been about nine months here when we got the route to march to Kilkenny, a distance of about forty miles, where we were destined to relieve the forty-second regiment, ordered on service. We parted with the people of Wexford with regret, and on their part with every demonstration of sorrow. Many of our men had married while in the town, and every thing during our stay conspired in a degree to identify us with the inhabitants.
We were escorted some miles by half the people of the town. A meeting was called of the magistrates and principal inhabitants, and an address drawn up, flattering alike to our feelings and pride, which was published in the principal newspapers. Thus we entered Kilkenny in the best possible disposition to be on friendly terms with its inhabitants, but we soon found that we had got a different kind of people to deal with. The sneers and oblique hints, the evident wish to quarrel, which they evinced when any of our men came in contact with them in the public-house, convinced us that we could never expect to be on the same terms with them as we had been with the inhabitants of Wexford.
The county being almost continually in a disturbed state, it was found necessary to have a large force distributed throughout its extent, to counteract their lawless schemes, and caused the duty to be particularly unpleasant. On our part it was not a little enhanced by the envious egotism and gasconading of the corps whom we relieved,—a corps that has been flattered by the country into a belief that they are the flower of the British army. To hear themselves speak, they were the saviours of the nation,—their exertions, wherever they had been engaged, had turned the tide of battle in our favour,—and, without the gallant forty-second, the army would be like a watch without a mainspring.
How the country could have been so long the dupe of high-sounding pretensions, I do not understand. It could never be from the general appearance of the corps, for of all the Highland regiments in the service, they are the most despicable, or, to use an expressive term,shauchlin, in point of appearance. Is it for their superior discipline? all who have seen them in quarters or in the field, know that the reverse is the fact. Was it for their superior courage? this I deny: they have often got into scrapes by their want of steadiness, and when they did so, they fought desperately, no doubt, to recover themselves; but if a man, through his own imprudence, were to set his house on fire about his ears, his hazarding a jump of two stories to escape the flames, could scarcely be cried up as a very heroic action. Trace them from their origin as a police corps in the Highlands, through Egypt, the Peninsula, in fact wherever they have been, and what have they done to merit the particular distinction above every other corps in the service, which they pretend to? Nothing—absolutely nothing: they are a complete verification of the proverb, ‘If you get a name of rising early, you may lie in bed all day.’ No doubt much of the popular feeling relating to them has been revived and cherished by certain writers, who have thrown the charm of romance round an age distinguished by tyrannyand unrelenting barbarity on the one hand, and brutal ignorance and superstition on the other,—whose taste might be questioned as much as that of a painter, who would throw gorgeous drapery around a hideous skeleton.
It must have confounded every person of any judgment to see the nation carried away with this mania, until they were dancing in masquerade, from the peer to the half-starved mechanic, doffing their warm comfortable breeches to sport a pair of extenuated spindle-shanks in a kilt, and those who could not afford to buy one, throwing a piece of tartan over their shoulders, or wearing a bonnet filled with ostrich feathers, and dubbing themselves Highland societies, under the name of Celtic, &c. &c., although perhaps they never saw the Highlands, unless at the distance of forty or fifty miles. These things are now dying away, and, if we except the casual appearance of some frail dandy, who has failed to attract attention by any other means, and who does so to put himself into the mouth of the public, philabegs are banished to their native hills. You may now find buckles and ostrich feathers in every broker’s shop, articles which, by the by, the real clansmen never heard of until they came down to the Lowlands to see their dress and manners caricatured; if they ever wore feathers, they must have been crow feathers, and their shoe-buckles, I believe, were as scarce as those for the knee.
I have no animosity to Highlanders, as a body; there are many brave and intelligent men amongst them, who would disdain to seek any adventitious aid from the mania of the day, and I willingly allow them credit for what they deserve in common with the rest of the army; but the behaviour of a regiment is so much influenced by the officers, or officer, commanding, and the men who compose it are so often changed during war or foreign service, that a judgment formed of them at one time would be erroneous at another. I have never seen any difference worth observing between the courage of English, Irish, or Scotch; and in a profession likeours, where the natives of the three kingdoms are so intimately mixed, any comparison of the bravery of either country must be artificial in the extreme. The following is a specimen of the mode in which thegallant Highland Watchacted towards us:—
They wore long frills to their shirts, that reached to the first or second button of their jackets, which were on all occasions ostentatiously drawn out; but these, in compliance with the regulation, our regiment did not wear. This having been remarked by the inhabitants, they asked the reason, and the one currently alleged by the forty-second was, ‘O! she’ll lose her frill for rinnin’ awa’,’ and thisliewas propagated by them at the time they were pretending the greatest friendship for us, and expressing their hope that (should we go abroad) we might be in the same division with them.
Any comparison of the merits of the two corps might appear invidious; but I believe we had no reason to shrink from it. Had it been the reply of an individual, it would have been unworthy of remark; but those regiments who have been quartered with the forty-second must be well acquainted with their boasting illiberal manner.
Trifling as they may appear, these things certainly produced a feeling which added to the discontent of the people, and we could perceive, before we were many days in the place, that our situation amongst them would be very uncomfortable; and we had not been long there, when one of our sentries upon the hospital at the head of the town, had his hamstrings cut by some person who had been lurking about his post. Whether this proceeded from individual enmity, or a dislike to the soldiers in general, is a thing which must remain in doubt; but it excited a mutual animosity, and caused strict orders to be issued to the sentinels not to allow any person to approach within a certain distance of their post, without coming to the charge; and not long after, an inhabitant, the worse of liquor, passing by one of our sentries, and disregarding the caution given him, obstinately persisted in forcing himself upon the sentry, and received a wound which eventuallyproved mortal. Thus, new cause of hatred was produced and kept alive, by circumstances which sprung from a jealous feeling on either side. We very naturally blamed the inhabitants as being the aggressors, and referred to our conduct in Wexford, of which the inhabitants had borne honourable testimony. The people of Kilkenny, on the other hand, execrated us as savages who cared nothing for human life. This feeling might have died away, but a melancholy occurrence took place, which kindled it anew.
In consequence of the disturbed state of the surrounding country, the men coming in to head quarters for the pay of the detachments, were obliged to carry arms for their personal safety; and one of the sergeants coming in for that purpose, accompanied by one or two of his own men, and an inhabitant of the village where the detachment was stationed, went into a public-house, for the purpose of getting some refreshment. Having sat until the liquor exerted its influence on their heads, one of the soldiers quarreled with the inhabitant, and they stood up to fight. The sergeant, who was naturally hasty and choleric, rose up with the pistol which he carried in his hand, to separate them. In the scuffle the pistol was fired, and the inhabitant fell, mortally wounded; the alarm was given, a crowd gathered round the house, and the infuriated mob would have torn the sergeant to pieces, had he not been protected by the constables and conveyed to jail.
It was an unfortunate affair, and was made the most of by the mob. I knew Sergeant Brody well—perhaps I was one of his most intimate friends; he was then about twenty years of age. In point of duty he was strictly correct, and much esteemed by his officers; his education and intelligence were far beyond that commonly possessed by soldiers, and altogether he would have formed an agreeable companion, were it not that his good qualities were tinged with petulance and impatience of contradiction, arising, no doubt, from a consciousness of his abilities, added to a temper naturally irritable and fiery.
I happened to be on duty when the deed was done; but next day I was admitted to see him. His mind was overwhelmed with horror, and he pressed my offered hand in silence, while he looked doubtfully in my face, as if he asked, Can I expect you to feel for me?—do you not consider me a monster? I understood him—‘I do feel for you,’ said I: ‘I feel all the awful exigency of your situation; but I will not forsake you—command me in anything that can serve you.’
‘This is more than I expected,’ he replied, ‘but I cannot now speak to you, my mind is in the most gloomy confusion; but I hope you will come to see me when you can.’ And on my assurance that I would, we parted.
He never entered into any particulars of the unfortunate affair, even to me; but his feelings were too agonising for concealment. Every indulgence was given him consistent with his safety, which he could expect; and being allowed to visit him, I generally saw him every day. As the assizes approached, he summoned up all his energy for the event—death seemed a dreadful thing, no doubt, should such be his sentence; but the idea of a public execution was to him worse than a thousand deaths. On this subject he often spoke to me, and with such fearful emphasis of manner, that I expected the horrible idea would unsettle his reason. Some days previous to his trial, however, when I visited him, a wonderful change seemed to have taken place in his mind; he talked of the event with composure—every wild passion of his soul seemed swallowed up in a melancholy softness; he talked of his friends, of what the world would say of him after he was dead, and seemed to derive pleasure from speculating on the nature of the immortal world he thought himself on the point of entering. Yet at times I could observe a triumph in his eye, when he adverted to the attendant circumstances of an execution, and he once or twice even hazarded a jest on the subject. All this was so utterly at variance with his former feelings, that I did not know what to think of it. When we were parting,I mentioned that as I was going on guard next day, probably I would not have an opportunity of seeing him before his trial.
‘I am sorry for that,’ said he, ‘for I have something important to say to you; but I may as well say it now—Do you see no difference in me since you saw me last?’
‘More than I can account for,’ said I.
He took my hand, and looking me earnestly in the face, ‘Do you really think,’ said he, ‘that I have made up my mind (if such should be my sentence) to consign myself to the hands of the common executioner?—If you think so, you do not know me; they may condemn me, but they shall never make a gazing-stock of me. I have struggled with nature, reason, and religion, until my brain is nearly turned. I have only one alternative, and that I shall embrace.’ We were here interrupted by the turnkey locking up the cells; but I needed no farther explanation of his determination.
I could not see him next day; but I determined to write to him, and sat down when I got home for that purpose; but what could I say? When I imagined myself in his situation for the purpose of trying the question, I was obliged to own that I would have been in danger of forming the same resolution;—still, however, I endeavoured by every argument I was master of, to sway him from his purpose; but when I gave the letter next morning to a comrade, for the purpose of conveying it to him, I felt it was of no use.
The second day after, when I got off guard, I hastened to the court-house; his trial had commenced,—the house was crowded, and the greater number of the officers of the regiment were present. The evidence adduced proved clearly that he had fired the shot; but no malice or forethought of the crime was established: so far from that, the prisoner and the deceased had been on the best terms. Several officers came forward and gave him an excellent character—the Jury retired, and during the interval, I am certain there were manythere who felt the dreadful suspense nearly as much as the prisoner—they again appeared, and gave in a verdict of manslaughter—a weight was relieved from my heart,—he was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment. Will it be believed, that on my next seeing him he seemed to feel disappointed? Such is the strange inconsistency and vanity of human nature, that after working his mind up to the pitch necessary to take away his own life, and throwing a colouring round the deed that had strongly excited his imagination, he felt a kind of regret that the sacrifice was not now necessary.
It is needless to enter more at large into his story: he survived his imprisonment, but he could not endure the stigma which was attached to his character. In an evil moment he deserted—was afterwards apprehended and drafted to a corps stationed in the Grecian Islands, where he soon after died, leaving an example of the awful consequences which may proceed from one unguarded burst of passion. Few men in the regiment had better prospects—a common mind might have regained in a great measure its equilibrium; but how often is it the case, that when a mind of sensibility and genius errs, ‘it falls, like Lucifer, never to rise again.’